The Republican majority leadership of the House of Representatives has agreed to accept the U.S. Senate’s deal to largely seek to end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is 47 days old.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (Louisiana) released a statement Wednesday with Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune (South Dakota) acknowledging, finally, that the deal reached last week by senators is the solution at hand.

Once both chambers revisit the Senate resolution, which leaves out routine appropriations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Republican leaders would promote, as part of a new fiscal reconciliation bill, three years of funding for ICE and CBP.

Republican congressional leaders issued their statement after President Donald Trump, in a message on his social networking site Truth Social, called for a new fiscal reconciliation bill by June 1 and indicated that they would fund ICE and CBP with special appropriations from the 2025 fiscal reconciliation bill for the time being.

A tax reconciliation bill can go over the Senate filibuster rule, which usually requires at least 60 votes to bring a measure to a final vote.

When Senate Republicans last week accepted the Democratic proposal to fund all of DHS for the remainder of FY 2026 except ICE and CBP, Thune and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) had agreed that this was the only measure with a chance of passage.

Democrats have consistently refused to fund ICE and CBP until reforms to ICE are adopted, such as requiring the use of facemasks, body cameras for all agents, and warrants for searches, among other requirements.

“We appreciate and share the President’s (Trump) determination to put an end once and for all to the Democrat-driven shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will comply with the president’s directive by fully funding all of DHS through two parallel tracks: the appropriations process and the reconciliation process,” Johnson and Thune said in their statement.

As of Wednesday, Johnson was refusing to accept the Senate’s consensus resolution. His refusal has extended for about two weeks much of the partial shutdown of DHS offices.

Last Friday, after the Senate passed its consensus resolution, Johnson and his caucus preferred a measure that temporarily extended the entire DHS budget through May 22, even though it did not have the votes in the upper chamber.

“For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction. Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never changed their position. From the beginning we were clear: fund critical security, protect Americans and don’t have blank checks for reckless ICE and Border Patrol enforcement,” Schumer reacted to the Republican deal.

This week, by Trump’s order, DHS resumed paying their salaries to Transportation Security Authority (TSA) screening agents, seeking to alleviate long lines at some airports.

But, workers at the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have gone without pay for the past 47 days.

The partial shutdown of DHS is the longest in the history of a U.S. government department.

The Senate may revive its resolution as early as Thursday during a pro forma session. The lower House is scheduled to reconvene on April 14.

Even if conservative Republican representatives reject the measure, the measure must have enough votes in the lower House to be ratified.

---

This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.